Saturday, February 25, 2012

Une litote: an ironical understatement in which a thought is disguised in such a way that one must guess its meaning, thus giving it more significance than if it were simply and straightforwardly expressed; e.g., an affirmative that is expressed by the negative of its contrary. If the rhetorical device were applied to the plastic arts, then it would neatly fit into the suitcases carried by the fantasmagorique figures of French sculpture Bruno Catalano. Van Gogh, in part, is represented here on a sidewalk in the Normandie port town of Honfleur.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

A winter morning's sulky training on the beach of Cabourg, a small resort town between Caen and Deauville in Basse-Normandie. Photo courtesy of Marianne Lecron.

Vocabularytrot: allure of a horse which is faster than walking but slower than a gallopau trot: lively or with speed; on the trotle trot attelé: trotting with a sulkyun sulky: a sulkyune course au trot attelé: a harness raceune course hippique: a horse race

Easy-to-eat yogurt merchandised in easy-to-get-hooked-on-collecting glazed terra cotta pots. The French are not big milk drinkers but eat lots and lots of yogurt, averaging a hefty 21 kilograms per person per year. The second largest group of yogurt consumers in Europe, just behind Germans.

VOCABULARY

le yaourt: yogurt

yaourt aux fruits: fruit yogurt

yaourt nature: plain yogurt

yaourt au lait entier: whole milk yogurt

yaourt glacé: frozen yogurt

terre cuite: terra cotta

une glaçure: a glaze

Expression

Pédaler dans le yaourt: To get nowhere fast

Link

For the easy, fun and famous French kids' yogurt cake recipe which uses the yogurt pot as a measure, click here.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Franz Kafka's famous vegetarian quote translated into French: "Maintenant je peux vous observer en paix; je ne vous mange plus." Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore.According to his friend Max Brod, Kafka said this while looking at fish in the Berlin aquarium in 1913.

A woman's movement of wit and subtletyLa Préciosité, a French 17th-century lifestyle of extreme refinement in art, music, manners and especially language, had at its heart Mlle Scudéry, an aristocratic feminist who idealized love but refused the "tyranny" of marriage and remained single all of her life. Credited with inventing extraordinary neologisms and brillant turns of phrases that even revolutionized the French language, the rather closed circle of femmesprécieuses frequented one another's literary salons to discuss and comment poetry and novels of galanterie and amour in conversations enlivened by artistic plays on words.Satirized as complicated and affected by Molière in Les Précieuses Ridicules (1659), Mlle Scudéry, aka Sapho, was nonetheless the very first woman of letters to receive the Académie Française prize for eloquence.

Vocabularyun langage recherché: a refined choice of words characterized by the desire to create a certain effectla préciosité: preciousness; in the derogatory sense, an exaggerated concern with elegant or refined behavior, language or mannersla galanterie: gallantry, polite attention or respect given by men to womenl'amour: loveun roman: a novelun bel esprit: a person with a fine and gifted mind

Friday, February 10, 2012

Oscar Wilde called the Victorian era's adulation of the Bard of Avon "bardolatry." Susceptible Frenchmen simply pronounce the homophone, "Shakespeare, j'expire." No Freudian enigmas intended--these people are mostly Latin at heart.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

A restored vintage landau, circa 1910-20, parked in front of an antique dealer in Nancy. The wooden baby carriage's peony motif, in a trompe l'oeil imitating marqueterie, is in the style of the Art Nouveau ébéniste and furniture designer Louis Majorelle (1859-1926), Ecole de Nancy.

Vocabularyun ébéniste: a highly skilled furniture maker and artisan, who working with thin sheets of precious woods, is talented in the decorative art of veneering un placage: a veneerune marqueterie: a marquetry, i.e., an inlaid work made from small pieces of colored wood or other materials, used primarily for the decoration of furnitureun landau: a pram, baby carriageun coup de pied: a kickau fait: by the by

Friday, February 3, 2012

Testée et approuvée. Tested and approved, this nifty late model Tefal crêpe pan is all that's left to show for the crêpes made in my kitchen. Yesterday, February 2, le Chandeleur, marked the New Year's first round of traditional crêpe making in France. (The next will be on mardi gras.) Le Chandeleur is a fête de crêpes linked to Christmas. It was originally a pagan festival, fête des chandelles or festival of candles. Since the 14th century the day has been associated with the Christian celebration of the presentation of the baby Jesus at the temple and the purification of Mary.